We Celebrate Juneteenth as a Powerful Affirmation that Black History is American History 

Dear Friends,

Yesterday, millions of Americans marked a turning point in our nation’s history when, more than 150 years ago, the institution of slavery came to an end in the United States. Honored from its earliest days, Juneteenth is one of the oldest commemorations of this kind. And this year’s celebration feels especially significant.

It would be a fateful June nineteenth in 1865, in Galveston, Texas, when Union General Gordon Granger issued General Order Number 3. The order stated: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

This declaration was not the first of its kind, coming years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—in fact Lincoln would be assassinated in the two and a half years it took General Order Number 3 to be issued. Instead, it stands out as one of the last, an extraordinary moment when Lincoln’s proclamation would finally echo into the most remote corners of our nation. The last of America's enslaved people would be slaves no more.

Juneteenth quickly became known as a day of freedom and was celebrated in Texas by more than 250,000 newly freed Black Americans.

Our nation has come a long way since that June 19th. Yet even today, far too many among us still know a deep and persistent pain that bridges America of 1865 with that of 2020. For more than a century and a half, the entwined legacies of systemic racism, racial violence and economic oppression have remained at the root of our most important institutions, at every level of government, and spread throughout American society and culture.

Juneteenth recalls the specter of that history, challenging us to study the echoes of those who have suffered before us and among us. It also reminds us to hold out hope, that we have bent the arc of history before. And this Juneteenth we do have reason to be hopeful. Because we are at last, at long last, collectively awakening to this painful reality and the history that has brought us here.

This new reckoning, centuries in the making, carries with it an unquestionably urgency. Our nation was built on acts of unspeakable brutality that we almost never talk about, and our silence has all too often become a death sentence. Such acts of brutality were not violations of the law, they were the letter of our laws, enshrined in our founding and maintained by our most venerated institutions. And their legacy is alive and well.

These crimes of our past will not be unwritten by a few weeks of good intentions. We must do the hard work of listening, of lifting one another, and building a new and deeper understanding of who we are, how we got here, and what we intend to do about it.

One of the first things we can do is take a candid and thorough look at our public monuments in the full context of their history. It is a matter of fact and record that most monuments to the Confederacy were constructed generations after the Civil War during the era of Jim Crow laws and racial segregation. These constructs were no accident, they were part of a deliberate campaign to block access to the ballot, institute barriers to economic opportunity and in countless other ways undermine and reverse the spirited success that Black Americans had found during the brief period of Reconstruction.

Let me say this again. Building Confederate monuments was not some naive campaign to celebrate heritage or culture. 50 years after the confederacy lost the Civil War and lost that detestable institution of slavery, former Confederates and their sympathizers campaigned to retake power, often by casting themselves and their supporters as victims, and then used that power to lionize symbols of oppression and intimidation. This was a campaign to push down hard on a people who were just starting to lift themselves and their families up from the terrors of slavery.

It is also a matter of fact that maintaining these symbols in places of honor without historical context reinforces them. By contrast, moving them to sites where the rest of their story can be told will restore the hidden parts of our past and—just as importantly—ourselves.

Conversations about race, identity and power can be uncomfortable. For those of us who have grown up learning only noble tales of America's past, this process can feel like a personal challenge. In some ways it needs to be. Part of that challenge is accepting that we will sometimes feel defensive or feel the impulse to cling more tightly to our assumptions. But this challenge also offers the promise of growth. As we explore the roots of racism within our institutions, our society and culture, we can start to see things that were hidden very intentionally from many of us: the insidious power and contours of racism; our biases and our blind spots. And more importantly, we can start to do something about them.

Frederick Douglass once asked, “what to the slave is the 4^th of July?”

Malcolm X said, “I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.”

George Floyd’s last moments were stolen by that American nightmare. He was far from the first and he has not been the last. We have a duty—especially those of us who have not lived every day in the shadow of racism—to seek out perspective by listening and doing the work. Anything less would dishonor the lives and memories of people who have carried these burdens for us for more than 400 years.

Juneteenth has long stood as both a moment of reflection and a celebration of freedom. We rejoice in how far we have come even as we recognize how much further we have to go. Frederick Douglass said, “If there is no struggle there is no progress.” That struggle is at the feet of every one of us now, and we can rise to meet its challenge. Let this be our America, at long last, land of the free and home of the brave. 

DID YOU KNOW?

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, my office and I have worked to make sure you remain informed with the latest updates and recommendations on any and all COVID-19 related topics. With that in mind, here are a few recent developments that may be of interest to you:

The SBA has re-opened the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Advance (EIDL Advance) Programs to new applications. To access the application, click here: https://covid19relief.sba.gov/#/

• Who should apply:
  • If you have not previously applied to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program before and would like to be considered for an EIDL Loan or the EIDL Advance.
  • If you applied between March 19th and March 30th in the original application portal or document upload and have not received an EIDL Advance or Loan.
  • If there was an error in your original EIDL application.
• Who should NOT apply:
  •  If you have already been awarded an EIDL Loan and Advance.
  •  If your EIDL application has been reviewed and declined.
•  If you need assistance with your EIDL application, please go to www.nysbdc.org, click on make an appointment and submit the form. Once the form is received, a business advisor from the Small Business Development Center will be assigned to assist you.